Mellow Mullet
Masterpiece
My continuing journey of hacks to make your bonsai life easier. First a little music to set the mood, how about a little Dead or Alive?
Oh, you can thank me later for the ear-worm.
If you have been into bonsai for any length of time, you know that a turn-table is very useful when styling a tree. I have had several, but they never seem to hold up and I wanted one that could stay outside all of the time, without ruining. So, I came up with this:
Here it is broken down:
I have a friend who owns an industrial construction company and I got two stainless steel threaded flanges from their used parts pile and a couple of stainless nipples from Lowe's. You just have to pick two nipples that will slide into each other. I think mine are 2 inch and 1 3/4 inch, then choose your flanges accordingly.
I took it a couple of steps further, after I mounted it to the bench, I marked it and used a hole saw to cut a hole in the bench top for the top's nipple to pass through. Now I can install a longer piece of pipe to add a raise/lower feature to it. I then drilled a hole through the bases nipple and welded a nut to it. Added the same size bolt as the nut, and now I can lock the top into position.
The top is just marine treated plywood. I can put the heaviest tree that I have on there and it handles it with no problems. The pipe has just enough friction to keep the top from rotating while you are using it, but not too much to make it hard to turn.
Here are some more photos of how I put it together in case you are interested in building your own.
Oh, you can thank me later for the ear-worm.
If you have been into bonsai for any length of time, you know that a turn-table is very useful when styling a tree. I have had several, but they never seem to hold up and I wanted one that could stay outside all of the time, without ruining. So, I came up with this:
Here it is broken down:
I have a friend who owns an industrial construction company and I got two stainless steel threaded flanges from their used parts pile and a couple of stainless nipples from Lowe's. You just have to pick two nipples that will slide into each other. I think mine are 2 inch and 1 3/4 inch, then choose your flanges accordingly.
I took it a couple of steps further, after I mounted it to the bench, I marked it and used a hole saw to cut a hole in the bench top for the top's nipple to pass through. Now I can install a longer piece of pipe to add a raise/lower feature to it. I then drilled a hole through the bases nipple and welded a nut to it. Added the same size bolt as the nut, and now I can lock the top into position.
The top is just marine treated plywood. I can put the heaviest tree that I have on there and it handles it with no problems. The pipe has just enough friction to keep the top from rotating while you are using it, but not too much to make it hard to turn.
Here are some more photos of how I put it together in case you are interested in building your own.
